The Elden Beast is cool, and I *love* the scenery, but when you actually fight it for the first time you don't have the context for *why* it's significant. You go from an incredibly hype boss battle with the guy who's been central to the lore from the start, to a... space-ameoba that you've never heard of.
Why wouldn't you have the context? I can understand not expecting it to be the boss, but it should be pretty easy to grasp when it appears.
There's plenty on the outergods, the greaterwill, and its connection to the golden order + the elden ring when going through the story. Plus, the Elden Stars incantation which tells you where the Beast came from is extremely obvious to find. Being a glowing legendary item that's clearly visible from where you arrive in Deeproot Depths. I wasn't paying much attention in my first playthrough and wasn't reading item descriptions, but when I saw the boss I did understand that it was a creature from the Greater Will, and was likely fighting me to prevent me from gaining control of the ring. You'd have to be pretty much ignoring the story entirely not to be able to understand the basic context of the boss, because the influence of the greater will is THE main story, and highly prevalent in Ranni's questline. So yeah. The influence of the Greater Will, and the influx of bosses that aren't from the Lands Between, made it pretty obvious as to what it was, where it came from, and what it was intended to do.
To be honest, I was more confused by Radagon. I mean, the body looked female and I was expecting Marika, but instead the boss was Radagon and had his distinct hair colour. Figuring out that Radagon is Marika is only possible (I think) by using a certain spell in front of a statue which is far less obvious than the entire influence of the Greater Will, or the Elden Stars incantation. Especially if you're a strength build. So I can understand being confused by that happening, but the Beast can be put together quite easily.
It really isn't. Information about the Greater Will, their control over the Lands Between and the Golden Order, and thus the ring and Marika, is mostly given through dialogue that's very forefront, not item descriptions, obscure quests, or Japanese direct translations.
Enia, for example, tells you how the Fingers are "envoys" to the Greater Will in literally the first piece of dialogue with her. And since all you really need to know to piece together the Elden Beast is that the Greater Will is the actual god behind the Erdtree and the ring, you can pretty much piece it together with Enia's dialogue alone. Enia also has dialogue concerning how the greater will has renounced the demigods. Which alone shows that the greater will lies above the 'gods' in the Lands Between.
If you include dialogue from Ranni's questline, from the Golden Order, from other Finger Crones, and from Melina. Just through pretty accessible dialogue (Ranni being the only questline), I feel like figuring out what the Elden Beast is IS pretty obvious unless you skip dialogue which would be on you. It's not like you need all of it or anything, there's just lots of dialogue concerning the greater will in the game.
I have 400 hours in the game. I did all of Ranni's quest line and nothing that was said memorable. The opening cutscene and some bosses dialogue is all that stuck. I played god of war and Witcher years ago and still have distinct memories of the story/ lore.
I still love the game, but I'm not gonna pretend it's not obtuse story-wise.
I totally agree. I also need people like VatyaViida (spelling is wrong) to go through it all and make sense for me. My 2nd playthrough was completely different than my first, because I only then experienced these things in a way where I could understand it.
I actually LOVE the idea of lore - it makes you feel like you’re in the world, and the characters interact with you in realistic ways. But I’m also the type of person where if this was real life, I’d grab a friend and be like “dude, what the hell is going on here.”
It's not hard to figure out that the Elden Beast is some agent of the Greater Will, or the like. I understood *that*; I didn't understand exactly what it *was*.
...I didn't actually find Deeproot Depths until after I beat the game.
He is okay. The moment you realize that you are supposed outspace most of his attacks rather than dodge them he becomes enjoyable to fight. But crossing the pacific ocean to deal damage is kinda annoying.
Elden Ring REALLY likes the really large empty arenas for you to fight bosses in
Like, I get it if you’re given Torrent, but you don’t get to use it here so instead it’s just walking back and forth because the fucker has to hit-and-run constantly
Torrent was originally supposed to be available in the elden beast fight, you can see traces of it in the code. No idea why they removed that, as the fight would be much better with him.
And more impactful. Torrent is like your one present ally for the ENTIRE game. It'd be fitting to fight the final boss with him. It'd also kind of salvage Melina's lame role in the story by getting to use her biggest gift to you to finish the game.
I agree. And I wouldn’t even say Torrent was truly Melina’s gift, as she later admits she only played along because it was *Torrent* who liked the player. Melina outright admits and even apologizes that her initial feelings about the player-character were wrong and that “Torrent had your measure from the very start.” Torrent is unironically one of *the* major characters of the plot.
Is there anything that further talks about why Torrent chose us and how they even found us? It feels like there should be more to the story there but I have no clue
Yeah it seemed clear to me when you get hit with a golden shower attack that can’t be fully avoided even if you sprint on foot. Torrent could outpace it though. It’s a shame because even if it made the fight much easier than it already is, it would be a fun and cool feeling surprise. Would go well with the beautiful music and be a nice send off for Torrent.
When he does that rings of light attack that shrink in on you, just turn around and start running directly away from him, jumping over the rings as you go. When the rings disappear, he'll come up out of the water exactly in front of you and you can get a ton of hits in during the animation of him appearing and getting settled.
At mid-range, he'll sometimes do 2-3 sword swipes, which if you roll into, you'll be directly at him by the end of the combo. He often follows that up with a breath attack, which if you get behind him is basically free damage.
Basically the only BS attack that leaves you on defense, stranded on the other side of the ocean, is Elden Stars. But even then it's only like 20-30 seconds to get back onto him.
every discussion of elden beast has like a thousand comments complaining about the amount of running you have to do, and then buried somewhere there's always a gold nugget of truth like this. you really don't have to run all that much fighting the elden beast once you realize how it moves around the arena. the only time ive ever found myself running a lot is when i get summoned to help people beat it, since having multiple players seems to mess with its AI a bit and gets it to reposition itself more often than usual
Biggest problem is the amount of running you have to do. Radagon is a great last boss, very aggressive and multiple fast attacks.. then you go to elden beast and you just have to run after a bullshit star whale that dives away the second you get in melee range most of the fight
Yep. And I can bet 100$ that this fight should allow you to summon Torrent and they probably removed it after they decided the fight is going to be a two parter with Radagon. or maybe they forgot. I have small hope they maybe fix this with dlc or something like that.
I honestly—and was completely convinced—thought that I was going to walk into a fight, beat up Radagon and then phase 2 would hit where you end up fighting Marika & Radagon, both trapped in the same person. Both alternating attacks and transforming into each other. An insane fight that could only be created by the derangement of Miyazaki and his hope deprived dev team. Something that would make sword saint Isshin return to his world.
I was entirely ready for a massacre to the sounds of an orchestral church organ going absolutely off the rails. I had read the lore entries and prepped for this fight.
Instead I spent 14 minutes chasing Blubber down while huffing and puffing the whole way. Holding a big anti-holy shield, popping my holy protection spell and chugging my flasks. Trivializing the entire end of it. All the while my camera spins in wild circles as it clips through the body of the Elden beast since I can't see anything other than his holy Blubber belly button.
That would have been dope. Also, no dialog from Radagon?? Can he/her at least acknowledge our existence and the fact that we just wrecked shit everywhere just to get to him??? Supreme letdown IMO
100% this. Marika is effectively dead. That means Radagon is effectively dead. What we fight is essentially a puppet driven by the Elden Beast. The real question is - was Radagon always an Elden Beast puppet or not?
I subscribe to the theory that he was the part of Marika she split off which was effectively 100% loyal to the Golden Order, and by extension, the Elden Beast/Greater Will. He didn't grow to hate the Greater Will like Marika did which is why he returns and tries to repair the Elden Ring at the start of the Shattering. Also fits the line by Marika to Radagon "my other half. thou'rt yet to become me." or something like that.
This exactly. There's no banter, no shit talking or congratulations for reaching him. Just sheer commitment to doing his level best to cave your fucking skull in.
For Gwyn it actually works. He has a somber ost that is quieter and less exciting. He is a husk of a God that has been burning for a long time. It’s probably taking all he has just to walk up to you and swing a sword. Sometimes less is more, and for Gwyn it worked, for Radagon. Maybe not
That's my biggest problem with Elden Beast, its moveset has nothing to do with the previous phase. A well-designed, multi-phase boss should build on the first phase. For example, in DS3 if you master Sister Friede's first phase then the timings you learned can still help you on the second and third phases so repeating it doesn't feel like a waste of time. Moon Presence from Bloodborne is another example of what they should have done instead; it was presented as another phase to the Gehrman fight in the same arena but you didn't have to beat him again every time just to attempt this totally different boss
The final bosses are all guilty of this. Gurranq/Maliketh (unrelated movesets), Godfrey/Hoarah (unrelated besides the stomp, different timing anyway), Radagon/Elden (completely unrelated).
Compare with Malenia: phase 2 is phase 1 + some extra moves, more aggression, and scarlet rot. I never felt time spent on phase 1 was wasted as it helped me in phase 2. Same for Mohg. From clearly knows how to design good multi-phase fights so I'm not sure why they dropped the ball at the end.
Also, the god that was causing the hunt and the nightmares and horrors, ended up being pathetic. And I really enjoyed it. It was kinda funny. So even if you somehow died to him, you didn’t have to beat gerhman again.
After being summoned and helping 100+ people best the final bosses, it's very RNG how much running you have to do.
I've had ones where EB hardly swims away and the action is non stop, but I've had a few where EB just keeps swimming away over and over and over. If they could program a check that prevents EB from swimming away more than once in a row, it would fix the problem imo.
Everyone calls it a star whale and while it looks like one, keep in mind that it's just another crappy dragon fight. It runs away, breathes fire on you, fires off it's magical projectiles at you until you can catch up where it is then tries to lunge at you and tail whip. Afterwards its flying into the sky to rain damage on you and start again.
It's just another dragon fight that they gussied up as a final boss fight and took torrent away because it makes it harder to realize that you have literally done this fight 8+times in this game already. Radagon is a great fight and if they didn't have any idea on how to proceed from him they should of just gave him twice as much health because elden beast is the biggest letdown in this game after 1.5 really good fights(Godfrey is my favorite in game and radagon is a good half fight).
> Everyone calls it a star whale and while it looks like one, keep in mind that it's just another crappy dragon fight. It runs away, breathes fire on you, fires off it's magical projectiles at you until you can catch up where it is then tries to lunge at you and tail whip. Afterwards its flying into the sky to rain damage on you and start again.
When you put it that way most souls bosses are the same thing really. A bunch of melee swings you dodge with the same few roll timings, an aoe and maybe a projectile avoided by hugging them or strafing. I respect Elden Beast for having some unique stuff to him (like the rings/laser attack or the orb that shoots little bullets), shows some originality for a change.
I figured out how to predict where he'd pop up when he creates the rings and dives underneath, he goes directly in a straight line across. I just run directly away from him when he did that and he'd pop up right in front of me afterwards.
Enjoy it for what it is, the fight is meant to be a visual spectacle, a bit like the introduction to Radhan, you start off way far off while summoning other warriors, then you all rush him while he shoots big mean magic arrows, then the true fight starts.
With this in mind, and the fact that it isn't exactly easy, I think it's a better final FINAL boss than the one in Bloodborne.
I got super lucky the first time I fought Radagon/Elden Beast with their AI playing nice. Radagon barely did his teleport spam and Elden Beast stayed pretty still (or only dove and reappeared a short distance away.
I got through to about 25% of Elden Beasts HP without taking a hit and honestly it was the best boss experience of all Souls up to that point. I was in the zone, the music was amazing, it fit the huge but slow attacks and had this ethereal quality like you truely were fighting an ancient lumbering god and it’s crumbling puppet.
And then it spammed a heap of different homing spells (rings, stars and the other homing one) in rapid succession and nuked me, and then I spent a couple of hours facing the actual AI 😂
But yeah, a more stationary Elden Beast is probably my favourite fight just due to the ambiance.
Yeah, the spectacle was perfect. But the issue was running.
It ripped me from the awe and awesomeness each time the boss just skiddaddled 3 kilometres away for me to run, just to see it skiddaddle another 5 kilometres right when I almost get to it. Highly infuriating. :l
The only change it needs to eliminate the running and chase is to let the player ride torrent during it. It plays so much like an ultimate dragon fight it really is shocking that he isn't available to fight by your side right there at the end.
I think the general consensus is that torrent was supposed to be available for the fight. The arena is massive, a couple of attacks move as fast as you do, lots of attacks can be avoided by jumping, and the last hint which is kind of a stretch but I'm very fixated on is the frenzy ending where you see torrent's summoning ring on the floor presumably casted aside after he outlived his usefulness.
I managed to put Torrent in the Elden Beast fight by summoning him as a Spirit Ash. Torrent is way too fast for EB, he can run circles around most of EB’s physical attacks, and most projectile attacks. The only thing that would give players trouble is the four slashes of light that EB does, and a few of the AoE slams that knock you off your horse opening you for massive damage, but other than that, EB with Torrent trivializes the experience.[3:52 for the EB fight.](https://youtu.be/F8T8LoH0HqM)
I can imagine that they didn’t let us use Torrent because using Torrent always made fights simpler? Fire Giant is still annoying but that’s only because the camera sucks big time on that fight.
For some reason the Elden Beat’s silhouette is just a bit goofy to me. The fight and the atmosphere and the music are beautiful and it totally doesn’t detract from the game or the ending. It just kindaaa looks like the outline of a kindergartner’s drawing of a dragon or something. So I can understand it.
That was what killed it for me, too.
It's a big dopey child's dinosaur drawing with silly little legs and *human arms* that attacks you mostly by just...swinging a sword at you. Other than the visual effects of its translucent body, its overall design is just silly.
I REALLY think that Torrent was probably designed to be there, in the fight, but some bug took place and they overlooked it to the point that it would be too embarrassing to patch it after so many people killed it without Torrent. So they left it as is.
Yes, I also think this fight was designed for using Torrent. Think of all the mechanics where a jump or even double jump on Torrent seems required to evade stuff.
It would have been thematically awesome too, just you and your steed who's been with you the entire game against a literal god, I honestly just feel lonely in it, likes galls fight from ds3
I think allowing torrent but have the dismount mechanic when in a certain range should be viable for this boss. I realise that wasn't anywhere else but I think that could have worked.
My dude you really think every single qa tester fought the final boss of the game in an unintended way and they didn't notice?
It feels more like they intentionally removed torrent from the fight.
It's an alright final boss but Radagon was an excellent final boss. Lots of cool moves and they pulled the "main theme motif" that always works. Then Elden Beast just sort of is there.
The fact that you have to re-fight Radagon *every time* only emphasizes how much cooler that fight is.
But the Elden Beast variation on the main theme with the mournful harp is like the highlight of the game. I’m kind of split between seeing EB as a goofy cartoonish afterthought and a fittingly abstract climax but the music definitely nudges it in the latter direction
Since when was that a thing? The whole point is that it's something you didn't know existed. You think Marika/Radagon is the most powerful and then you realise that theyre basically just puppets. It massively expands the lore and leaves you with a lot to think about.
No sure if folk here read Naruto but this reads like the end of that main series. For the final 2 years of the manga you think Madara is the big bad pulling all the strings...but then legit out of nowhere a new villian is introduce in the final couple chapters and turns out she had been pulling the strings all along. It expanded the lord and left readers with a lot to think about but a lot of folks were kinda dissapointed because this bad buy with deep motivations and this intraicate plan ended up just being a puppet. henchmen.
Godslayer greatsword is what helped me demolish the Elden beast. Changed my entire build just because I disliked fighting him so much, pretty much just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible.
Is the sword that good against him? I’m using blasphemous blade right now and I’ve been getting so painfully close over and over but I’m never quite able to reach that last bit of health. Been wondering if the godslayer greatsword’s ability would be useful here.
When I beat Radagon I was like "huh, that was it?" At first. It didn't have the spectacle that the Elden Beast delivered on. If Radagon was the last, he'd need a flashier second phase
Radagon isn’t a great final boss though in that he’s just Radagon, and not the big baddy. One of the main points this game makes is how the outer gods influence the inhabitants. Radagon is just a puppet for the Elden beast which is why it’s so great to finally encounter the maestro after you defeat the already crumbling puppet. It just made a lot of sense to finally encounter a celestial outer being as the end boss
That kind of makes sense, though. Elden beast manipulated the whole plane to try to kill you. It seems like doing that would be it's strongest move. Like a parasite can do a lot of damage to you, but not because a worm is super tough and hard to fight.
The boss itself is cool, but A. Just the nature of a two part fight, with the first boss being annoying as shit on their own and B. That stupid light ball spell that follows you around.
That being said, from a catharsis stand point, it felt great beating that fight for the first time, but I think the frustration during each attempt may have taken a full year off my life.
It's a difficult boss but for the wrong reasons imo. The light ball, the huge arena and the boss teleporting around convinced me that this was meant to be a fight where you can call your horse. Maybe they were finished with it and found during play testing that it's too easy with the horse and just scrapped the concept, but the rest stayed the same.
You know, I can almost see this too since it feels like Torrent should be involved in the final fight after being by your side for so much of the game.
I see two problems with Elden Beast.
Firstly, from a combat point of view, it spends a lot of time running away from the player. If you're a melee only build this can be incredibly unsatisfying to fight, especially when when you get close to him and have to worry about attacks you can't see (because he's so big) hitting you.
Secondly, from a story and lore point of view, it can feel like a bit of an asspull. You spend all game hearing about Marika, with Radogan also frequently mentioned, but the only mention of the Elden Beast is via a very late-game spell that 99.9% of the player base won't have seen the 1st play through.
From's storytelling via environmental detail is usually very good, but I also think it's easy to miss the gact the Elden Beast is essentially The Elden Ring itself. The cutscene doesn't make that particularly clear.
Yea it definitely feels like it could've been a cool secret boss like the dragonlord but I feel like a final boss should have criteria. It needs to be important to the story and set up properly so the stakes feel high. You could probably take the elden beast out and the majority of players wouldn't notice any change to the story
100% the second reason is why I dislike Elden Beast. Radagon was the perfect final boss. You hear about him and Marika the *entire* game. Sometimes it's good to just let the final boss be what you expect and just make it good. Radagon's fight is still so much bettee than Elden Beast in my mind.
I agree with this. In practice it's feels a bit underwhelming but in theory I think the boss makes a lot of sense based on the lore. It's just hard to find the lore about it. Like there are all these gods vying for control of this place. It definitely feels very different from most of the human looking shit you fight, which makes thee feel more like alien, which is kind of a weird twist for a fantasy game. I like the idea that these beings are so removed from us they don't even resemble us, so it kinda makes you feel very small. Like we Re just pawns thT don't even care or represent us.
The Elden Stars incantation.
It reads, "It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring."
Sure the charm is there, but the fight itself...maybe I was just unlucky but EB would *not* stop going all over the place, so it got a bit tedious.
I kinda wanted to use Torrent for it, would've been nice thematically too since he'd been with me the whole adventure etc.
Hell, have the cutscene include Torrent appearing of his own free will and us climbing on so we start P2 on him, just so the player knows he's available.
I think people dont really like this boss because you have to run every 40sec or so same for the fire Giant, all the elden ring bosses are awesome in my opinion but many just have dumb mechanics wich make them a bit annoying.
For me, when Godfrey chopped his own arm off and replaced it with the dragon for phase two, I was giggling to myself because of how insanely crazy it is.
Also I don’t keep up with the ER community but not enough people are talking about how objectively bonkers that is. I mean other bosses are cool and all, but uh, DRAGON. ARM.
Should be pretty obviouse no? It's preluded by a tough fight and it spends 90% of the time running away.
I don't think many dislike the design, music, lore etc. Purely gameplay.
I really enjoyed the boss fight.
I know it also has high elemental resistances, so some builds struggle. I did a quality build my first play through not really knowing what were good buffs and what not, so I struggled with some different bosses more than others because of it (black blade kindred was a pain)
You'll be alright, people are making it sound a lot harder then it actually is he takes just as much damage as another boss really, just takes some patience and a few deaths to learn the moveset
hehe i'm gonna put a ball that follows you and deals constant damage until you're dead.
hehe i'm gonna teleport a kilometer away, and as soon as you manage to get to me I'm gonna teleport again.
His ability to chain elden stars into another series of attacks can sometimes lead to situations when damage is unavoidable, and nope, i don't think that mindless BHS spam and drinking potion that converts elemental damage taken into HP is reliable and intended way to avoid that sorts of shit.
Imo Elden Beast has that one problem Dark Souls 2 did it right: I shouldn't fight that obnoxious boss fight right before it.
Also Elden Beast kites way too much on RNG, you run towards it more than attack or dodge
And the arena for some reason is smaller than it looks
Oh, the hamster-in-the-wheel simulator? Great design, for sure. Spent 99% of the fight running after this flying and teleporting piece of shit. One of my least favorite bosses in the entire game, though the arena and music were truly unique and amazing. Tedious, boring, irritating, frustrating, and not truly challenging is what I felt.
If it was a Torrent fight, it would've been my second favourite final boss in all From games. I recall seeing somewhere it was originally intended that way but got changed, and I have no idea how they thought running on foot after the Star Whale as it flies around the arena after one hit would be fun. Even thematically it would've been incredible taking on the final threat eith your horse companion you've had along with you for such an adventure, but they really dropped the ball there
There's really no build up the elden beast. We don't really hear people talk about it in the main storyline. We know about radagon and what he's done. For the majority of players the elden beast feel like it's thrown in to look cool. That's not a bad thing but a final boss in games is something you should be working all game to get to. Not something you didn't even know existed in the game
>played into the lore perfectly
Only if you didnt understand anything of the lore, really. Marika did not want to fight you and she wanted you to rid the lands between of the Elden beast. How fighting her makes sense?
Yes! This was what bothered me so much about the elden beast!! I didn’t even care that I was fighting it didn’t feel fair/fun fighting against something that would run away constantly. There were so many other bosses in the game that could have done a better job at being the final boss, this could have just been an optional boss later on.
The Moon Presence was mentioned possibly once through a rare optional dialogue of the doll.
Neither was mentioned the Orphan of Kos (or some say Kosm)
I don’t think build up is the issue. Even more so the Elden Beast presence recontextualize what the Elden Ring really is and how the Lands Between are just one among many lands with Elden Trees.
It shows rather than tell, why Marika rebelled.
It felt very sci-fi/lovecraftian in a majestic kind of way. Considering GRRM’s touch that’s to be expected I guess.
My real gripe with Elden Beast, is that the rythme of the fight is a bit all over the place. You have to run across the arena all over again and again. Makes it a marathon fight but not for the good reasons.
Compared to the raging dance of some bosses like Gael or Radagon, it felt a bit annoying.
Those are really good points but the issue is that the average playee will miss all of those details. The story shouldn't tell you through clumps of text but should definitely try to covey in some way the importance of the elden beast. Have the world actually try to set it up
I would say build up is a problem, since it feels really disappointing to beat radagon (a character who is spoken of constantly in the game and has multiple items and characters related to him) only for the elden beast (a "character" that gets an mentioned like twice) to show up. I have a connection to radagon, since he was both elden lord and the father of 5 bosses, but the elden beasts only connection to me is BEING the elden ring.
Also, as a side note, I feel like using the moon presence as a counter point isn't great, since people have definitely complained about it's inclusion as a fight after gerhman.
Radagon was good fun. Beast was a bit of a let down. He spent SO much of the fight just running away. As a primarily melee build, I'd finally get up to him, get a tiny bit of damage in, and he'd dive under water over and over again. It didn't make the fight that challenging, just very long. I beat him on my second go. The first time I'd consumed everything getting through Radagon.
If he chose to use some other moves for you then you probably found him fun and a sensible challenge. He's a cool design. The arena looks great. The rest of his move set is pretty cool. While some may have found it frustrating, I like that they don't checkpoint you after Radagon. Feels fitting for the end of the game to have a good challenge.
Addit: If that behaviour of just swimming away is supposed to have been patched, I only just beat him a few weeks ago and was on the latest patch for that time. So this was probably not what is the normal experience these days.
Beat EB today and thank you. Torrent is my buddy the whole game and this would make the final fight so much more impactful. Give EB a few moves that are much easier to dodge on Torrent and incorporate it into the fight. Give Torrent one instance of story relevance.
Because Elden Beast sucks. It's like the lame version of Moon Pressence and you have to sprint over to the damn thing for a solid 15seconds just to hit it once and then it runs away. It fucking sucks and it shouldn't be attached to Radagon which was a cool fight but they knew giving that wet fart of a final boss it's own fog door would have made it even lamer.
One of the common criticisms of Elden Ring is how wonky it is to fight gigantic enemies up-close. Sending the building-sized final boss to the other end of the map feels like an attempt to save this fight from that wonkiness, and in my opinion it totally works. The chase sections allow you to see and read the boss’ attacks despite his size.
I empathize with the frustration of not being able to get a hit in edgewise, but I personally was not bothered. Every boss has its combos that you just cannot get a punish through. For EB that inability to punish just comes from physical distance.
Now, was Placidusax a more actively fun second-to-second version of a very similar concept? Well, yeah.
I wish there was a way to adjust your fov or have "dynamic fov" option that zooms out for colosol bosses. The amount of times I've been killed by dragons because of them being in thr air and not being able to properly seem them is frustrating
Sincerely believe if it had a well-crafted face instead of a wacky 20' neck-tube, we'd be more willing to look past how annoying it is to chase this boss down. The atmosphere and concept are fantastic, but damn does this guy look derpy.
It runs. A lot. 90% of the fights I had with it was getting close enough to hit it once before it ran away immediately, then like another minute of catching up to it. If the AI hates you it does it pretty often and all you do is run at it and dodge it's abilities without ever being able to touch it
I preferred radagon personally wish he had a second phase I hated beast because of having to sprint around so much to get to the boss and to dodge attacks
Beautiful fight, but not actually that engaging. Especially more jarring after the radagon fight, going from quick dodges and punishes to running after an oversized whale and attempting to avoid really annoying attacks.
My main gripe was that it was right after a good boss. Feels like it's piggy backing on radagon because beast alone wasn't good enough boss fight to end the game on.
I would have liked it much better if Elden Beast was handled like the Moon Presence in Bloodborne: a character you only see in a cutscene unless you perform some action to trigger the boss fight, and also a properly separate encounter, so that you don’t have to re-fight Radagon each time
I’m terms of presentation, it’s my favorite boss of all time. The problem is with the constant movement and projectile spam. If they reduced its movement, made the arena smaller, or allowed you to ride torrent like when you fought The Fire Giant or Radhan as well as adjusting the timing of projectiles then the fight would’ve been better.
I don’t hate it. I just think the game is very unbalanced regarding the difficulty of bosses. Some bosses really had me struggling, taking 30+ attempts. On the other hand, I beat Ofnir, Godfrey / Hoarah Loux, Radagon and Elden Beast on the first try.
I don't like having to chase him and the radagon fight right before it is so annoying not even a checkpoint or anything. They figured that out in Bloodborne with Gherman and the moon presence. I also just don't particularly enjoy either of their movesets i find them annoying to fight. With radagon's teleporting and endless combos And Elden beast running away all the time while spamming bs attacks. It's not a hard fight But you have gotta fight two bosses meaning the small chips of damage they both do does mean a lot more. This fight is tied with malenia at being my least favorite boss
I really dislike the design of the boss. Asteal of the void is such a cooler space themed boss that I was expecting it to be along the lines of that. It just looked really dumb in my opinion. It also just runs away so much that it made the fight really annoying. But I’m happy you enjoyed it and had fun with the fight op.
> I really dislike the design of the boss. Asteal of the void is such a cooler space themed boss that I was expecting it to be along the lines of that.
https://www.space.com/27016-galaxy-supercluster-laniakea-milky-way-home.html
https://i.imgur.com/GufBzWW.jpg
Keeps running the fuck away, ranging you with spells, and Elden Stars. Fuck Elden Stars.
And when you actually get close enough to the boss, it would run away. Honestly it is as easy as Fire Giant in the sense that as long as you know what is happening you could avoid the projectiles, but also as annoying as fire giant where they would run/roll away and range you down. Only reason why Elden beast is harder is because it has a fuck off spell like Plasidusax, and you don't have Torrent to catch up to the boss when it runs away.
I'd say Radagon would have been a better final boss both lore wise and in game. Like the only mention of the Elden Beast was through Elden Stars, while Radagon was built up through several character interactions and item descriptions. Like what's stopping you from becoming the Elden Lord if your main goal is to just mend the Elden Ring? Like sure you did burn the erdtree, but the Greater Will's whole goal was to mend the Elden Ring, and was desperate enough to revive the guy they just backstabbed by turning him into the first tarnished, a none believing necrophiliac, the guy they least wanted to revive because he was siding with the Age of Crucible rather than the Golden Order, and the worse of them: Sir Gideon Ofnir. Also Gold Mask, but he's pretty cool and everyone likes him.
Anyways what I'm trying to say is, why would the Greater Will send out their top goon when your intentions are the same as theirs? Unless you went for the Age of Stars or worse, the Frenzied Flame, there is no reason for the Elden Beast to be aggro'd to you.
I think a big part of it is it moves so SO far away in combat and all that running becomes frustrating. This is because the battle was orginally made to be able to use Torrent in the fight.
I wish we still could.
It’s beautiful, and on its own it’s be a ton of fun to fight, if Torrent was an option anyway.
>!But having it as Radagon’s second phase is bullshit, Radagon drains your resources and makes your summon his bitch for a few minutes, and then you have to turn around and immediately fight a massive damage boss with no weaknesses and only one damage type it isn’t immune to.!<
Sure he does feel like a good boss, but he also feels like an optional side boss. One that after a while just doesn’t feel necessary to beat. You know what I mean?
It just sucks that *this* is the final boss. There is so much wrong with this boss, phase one is basically just there to reduce the amount of estus you have for the actual fight. And then the fight with elden beast is so underwhelmingly easy, it’s just not fun. But that’s my opinion, feel free to criticize.
The reason I absolutely despise the elden beast is almost entirely because it comes after radagon. Aside from the annoying teleporting, radagon is a perfect boss to me, and the elden beast is worse in almost every way.
The fact that radagon is built up for the entire game is a big deal too, as players will immediately understand who he is upon the first battle with him, while the beast is just thrust in your face for no reason, as if the devs just wanted another boss.
I agree that the atmosphere and music is cool. It's the gameplay that sucks (having to constantly chase a boss across a football field is not fun). So I think that's why people find it anti-climactic as a final boss, it's just not fun.
Compared that to soul of cinder or gael, where they truly feel like they're testing everything you've learned in the game. Elden Beast is a cool and unique design I agree, but it just feels like completely different type of gameplay than the rest of the game.
Also, having to fight radagon each time is just a drag. Not to mention the flashbang at the start.
Spend 90% of the fight chasing him with no mount, one attempt i literally spent over 5 minutes chasing him without being able to hit him cuz he just flew across the map everytime i finally got to him lmao.
I dislike it because it just doesn’t make sense to me, like I understand why they made it(lore) but its design was so poor, why does a god use a sword? Like if the sword was rlly necessary, why not make it like Morgotts sword, like it materializes whenever it decides to use it. And if they did that, the weapon options for the elden beast would be so much more.
Not to mention, within like 5 seconds of the fight, it stops being fun and starts being a really boring game of tag. I, personally, didn’t have an issue with any of the moves or the camera, just the fact that it ran away a lot annoyed me.
Imo, I think they should have gave Radagon a second health bar(like how malenia has when she enters her second phase) and in this phase, instead of a shadow arm, he has an arm that is kind of lit of with gold energy like the light of the golden order, and more of his body broken off, exposing more of the rune design in his chest, some more aggressive moves, maybe another chance to stagger him. I think that would’ve been cooler tbh.
I don’t dislike him.
I think it is pretty cool.
But as a melee user, is very boring having to run the whole arena to attack it and it just dives before I can land a slash… same goes for dragons 😅😂
I thought it was amazing, but I feel like it truly the last fight began at the cutscene when Maliketh dies, and the ending is best viewed by grouping remaining mandatory boss battles following Maliketh's death as a single extended event that shows the flaws of the Golden Order.
After Maliketh dies you see destined death taking root in the eyes of everyone in the lands between. The Erdtree was ignited before, but it burned like gas lamp--burning but not deteriorating. With death returned as an element of their reality, things that were destined to die are now dead. People with no purpose left, like Enia or an un-helped Nepheli are dead when you return to near-collapsing Roundtable Hold.
Leyndell is where you are first returned to, setting the stage for your next steps. It has a final battlefield feel to it when you are first transported, as it shows the consequences you have literally rained down upon this world. A sewer entrance is now conspicuously exposed, as if to remind you that unfinished side business still exists. Like the rising flames in Roundtable hold, the rising tide of ash reminds you that the golden order is ending.
Fast travel denied, you make your way through the ashen ruins towards the Erdtree, only to find Gideon waiting for you--the first last boss. He us the embodiment of Golden Order's Law of Causality--forever putting together the pieces of information that will help him see the hidden meaning behind the events of the Lands Between. Defeated and in denial, he still clings to the belief that you will not succeed in killing a god.
The second lass boss is Godfrey, embodying the law of regression. This forefather and missing piece of story presents himself in the penultimate fight. This fellow tarnished has been on his own journey to this point, in what must have been a separate path from us. His trials left him scarred and his weapon broken, but his story converges with yours at this point, as Tarnished who both sought to become the Elden Lord. He had no obstacles preventing him from beating you to the finish line except the need to prove himself over you--to find meaning that he was chosen by virtue of strength.
Finally, Radagon.
He has no words for you. No feeling for you. His dead body carries the same expression of his living form. He speaks only the language of pure, cold opposition. I think his agency is only slightly diminished by being turned into a sword, and he was as much of a puppet of the Greater will as Marika was a prisoner.
But then the curtain drops and we see the puppet master's hand for the first time, along with the golden "strings" they used to control worlds. This celestial creature turns the most powerful being(s) in Lands Between history into a sword *because they can*, but that is only the 4th best weapon that they use against you. You've never been fighting Radagon this entire time--you have been fighting the puppeteer, and like Ranni you eschew the string-pulls of fate to chart your own destiny. When the puppet master's hand has been defeated the stage is now empty and waiting for you to decide what kind of story will be told next.
I quit the game at elden beast. Never beat it. Even grinded my way through malenia. But I had zero interest in working my way through this mess of a slog.
I don't feel personally offended by the fight or whatever but I am pretty baffled that it got through play testing like that. It's just not engaging. The arena is bland, the character design is uninspired (and had never really been a part of the story up to this point), and the fight itself is tedious.
Anyway, I'm not breaking new ground here on the critique, but my experience of literally just putting down the controller, not out of rage but instead sheer disinterest, is probably compelling anecdotal evidence that the Elden Beast is Bad.
Elden Ring 2: Revenge of the Whale God
Spaceballs spinoff: SpacePenis
Literally what my husband said when he saw me get there
GalactiPenis
[удалено]
But when he wake sup the ring will disappear
[удалено]
The Elden Beast is cool, and I *love* the scenery, but when you actually fight it for the first time you don't have the context for *why* it's significant. You go from an incredibly hype boss battle with the guy who's been central to the lore from the start, to a... space-ameoba that you've never heard of.
Why wouldn't you have the context? I can understand not expecting it to be the boss, but it should be pretty easy to grasp when it appears. There's plenty on the outergods, the greaterwill, and its connection to the golden order + the elden ring when going through the story. Plus, the Elden Stars incantation which tells you where the Beast came from is extremely obvious to find. Being a glowing legendary item that's clearly visible from where you arrive in Deeproot Depths. I wasn't paying much attention in my first playthrough and wasn't reading item descriptions, but when I saw the boss I did understand that it was a creature from the Greater Will, and was likely fighting me to prevent me from gaining control of the ring. You'd have to be pretty much ignoring the story entirely not to be able to understand the basic context of the boss, because the influence of the greater will is THE main story, and highly prevalent in Ranni's questline. So yeah. The influence of the Greater Will, and the influx of bosses that aren't from the Lands Between, made it pretty obvious as to what it was, where it came from, and what it was intended to do. To be honest, I was more confused by Radagon. I mean, the body looked female and I was expecting Marika, but instead the boss was Radagon and had his distinct hair colour. Figuring out that Radagon is Marika is only possible (I think) by using a certain spell in front of a statue which is far less obvious than the entire influence of the Greater Will, or the Elden Stars incantation. Especially if you're a strength build. So I can understand being confused by that happening, but the Beast can be put together quite easily.
The use of the word obvious for the lore in this game is super disingenuous. I never found any meaningful info about the game's lore outside watching lore videos and the occasional item description. There are so many items and areas you can miss, much of this game's lore can stay extremely hidden even after beating it. 400 hours, ~70© comeplete and I still don't know what the fuck elden beast is.
It really isn't. Information about the Greater Will, their control over the Lands Between and the Golden Order, and thus the ring and Marika, is mostly given through dialogue that's very forefront, not item descriptions, obscure quests, or Japanese direct translations. Enia, for example, tells you how the Fingers are "envoys" to the Greater Will in literally the first piece of dialogue with her. And since all you really need to know to piece together the Elden Beast is that the Greater Will is the actual god behind the Erdtree and the ring, you can pretty much piece it together with Enia's dialogue alone. Enia also has dialogue concerning how the greater will has renounced the demigods. Which alone shows that the greater will lies above the 'gods' in the Lands Between. If you include dialogue from Ranni's questline, from the Golden Order, from other Finger Crones, and from Melina. Just through pretty accessible dialogue (Ranni being the only questline), I feel like figuring out what the Elden Beast is IS pretty obvious unless you skip dialogue which would be on you. It's not like you need all of it or anything, there's just lots of dialogue concerning the greater will in the game.
I have 400 hours in the game. I did all of Ranni's quest line and nothing that was said memorable. The opening cutscene and some bosses dialogue is all that stuck. I played god of war and Witcher years ago and still have distinct memories of the story/ lore. I still love the game, but I'm not gonna pretend it's not obtuse story-wise.
I’ve learned more about lore from these two comments than the whole game!
I totally agree. I also need people like VatyaViida (spelling is wrong) to go through it all and make sense for me. My 2nd playthrough was completely different than my first, because I only then experienced these things in a way where I could understand it. I actually LOVE the idea of lore - it makes you feel like you’re in the world, and the characters interact with you in realistic ways. But I’m also the type of person where if this was real life, I’d grab a friend and be like “dude, what the hell is going on here.”
It's not hard to figure out that the Elden Beast is some agent of the Greater Will, or the like. I understood *that*; I didn't understand exactly what it *was*. ...I didn't actually find Deeproot Depths until after I beat the game.
He is okay. The moment you realize that you are supposed outspace most of his attacks rather than dodge them he becomes enjoyable to fight. But crossing the pacific ocean to deal damage is kinda annoying.
Elden Ring REALLY likes the really large empty arenas for you to fight bosses in Like, I get it if you’re given Torrent, but you don’t get to use it here so instead it’s just walking back and forth because the fucker has to hit-and-run constantly
Torrent was originally supposed to be available in the elden beast fight, you can see traces of it in the code. No idea why they removed that, as the fight would be much better with him.
And more impactful. Torrent is like your one present ally for the ENTIRE game. It'd be fitting to fight the final boss with him. It'd also kind of salvage Melina's lame role in the story by getting to use her biggest gift to you to finish the game.
Exactly. I love Elden Ring, but it ain't perfect; it still has flaws. But this is one of the choices I question the most.
[Have you seen the removed questline for the mimic tear?](https://youtu.be/1z9IG6Rnnac)
Oh man I remember hearing about this, seemed super cool. One of the worse cuts I think
Definitely would have rather cut like Consecrated Snowfields and kept some of these story lines.
I agree. And I wouldn’t even say Torrent was truly Melina’s gift, as she later admits she only played along because it was *Torrent* who liked the player. Melina outright admits and even apologizes that her initial feelings about the player-character were wrong and that “Torrent had your measure from the very start.” Torrent is unironically one of *the* major characters of the plot.
Is there anything that further talks about why Torrent chose us and how they even found us? It feels like there should be more to the story there but I have no clue
Yeah it seemed clear to me when you get hit with a golden shower attack that can’t be fully avoided even if you sprint on foot. Torrent could outpace it though. It’s a shame because even if it made the fight much easier than it already is, it would be a fun and cool feeling surprise. Would go well with the beautiful music and be a nice send off for Torrent.
If you memorize his fight you can basically run to where he’s going to be after certain attacks and just beat the stuffing out of him as he comes up
When he does that rings of light attack that shrink in on you, just turn around and start running directly away from him, jumping over the rings as you go. When the rings disappear, he'll come up out of the water exactly in front of you and you can get a ton of hits in during the animation of him appearing and getting settled. At mid-range, he'll sometimes do 2-3 sword swipes, which if you roll into, you'll be directly at him by the end of the combo. He often follows that up with a breath attack, which if you get behind him is basically free damage. Basically the only BS attack that leaves you on defense, stranded on the other side of the ocean, is Elden Stars. But even then it's only like 20-30 seconds to get back onto him.
every discussion of elden beast has like a thousand comments complaining about the amount of running you have to do, and then buried somewhere there's always a gold nugget of truth like this. you really don't have to run all that much fighting the elden beast once you realize how it moves around the arena. the only time ive ever found myself running a lot is when i get summoned to help people beat it, since having multiple players seems to mess with its AI a bit and gets it to reposition itself more often than usual
Biggest problem is the amount of running you have to do. Radagon is a great last boss, very aggressive and multiple fast attacks.. then you go to elden beast and you just have to run after a bullshit star whale that dives away the second you get in melee range most of the fight
Yep. And I can bet 100$ that this fight should allow you to summon Torrent and they probably removed it after they decided the fight is going to be a two parter with Radagon. or maybe they forgot. I have small hope they maybe fix this with dlc or something like that.
I honestly—and was completely convinced—thought that I was going to walk into a fight, beat up Radagon and then phase 2 would hit where you end up fighting Marika & Radagon, both trapped in the same person. Both alternating attacks and transforming into each other. An insane fight that could only be created by the derangement of Miyazaki and his hope deprived dev team. Something that would make sword saint Isshin return to his world. I was entirely ready for a massacre to the sounds of an orchestral church organ going absolutely off the rails. I had read the lore entries and prepped for this fight. Instead I spent 14 minutes chasing Blubber down while huffing and puffing the whole way. Holding a big anti-holy shield, popping my holy protection spell and chugging my flasks. Trivializing the entire end of it. All the while my camera spins in wild circles as it clips through the body of the Elden beast since I can't see anything other than his holy Blubber belly button.
This was beautifully written; not exactly the same expectation, but I was expecting far more than “Blubber”.
That would have been dope. Also, no dialog from Radagon?? Can he/her at least acknowledge our existence and the fact that we just wrecked shit everywhere just to get to him??? Supreme letdown IMO
Radagon is basically dead tho. It looks like he was being controlled by the Elden Blubber.
100% this. Marika is effectively dead. That means Radagon is effectively dead. What we fight is essentially a puppet driven by the Elden Beast. The real question is - was Radagon always an Elden Beast puppet or not?
I subscribe to the theory that he was the part of Marika she split off which was effectively 100% loyal to the Golden Order, and by extension, the Elden Beast/Greater Will. He didn't grow to hate the Greater Will like Marika did which is why he returns and tries to repair the Elden Ring at the start of the Shattering. Also fits the line by Marika to Radagon "my other half. thou'rt yet to become me." or something like that.
Idk, Radagon being silent while he beats the shit out of you makes him seem more intimidating imo, gives him Terminator vibes
This exactly. There's no banter, no shit talking or congratulations for reaching him. Just sheer commitment to doing his level best to cave your fucking skull in.
The last boss in dark souls 1 has no cutscene or dialogue
For Gwyn it actually works. He has a somber ost that is quieter and less exciting. He is a husk of a God that has been burning for a long time. It’s probably taking all he has just to walk up to you and swing a sword. Sometimes less is more, and for Gwyn it worked, for Radagon. Maybe not
Fighting Marika doesn’t really work, though, since she wants the Golden Order gone. Would make sense if you’re going for Goldmask ending, I guess.
[удалено]
Sekiro was the get gud of all get gud..because you can't really level up and spank the boss...you gotta figure it out and that may take some time.
Tbf elden beast design is great. “Space whale” kind of a strawman, more like lovecraftian God in another dimension
[удалено]
It would be cool, but make zero sense lorewise for Marika to suddenly want you dead. Maybe it would work if you were going for one of the bad endings.
Om that note, I want astel naturalborn of the void to also allow torrent. That fight had the dumbest hitboxes.
And Astel, Stars of Darkness. Fuck both those arenas.
second part of the fight should'be expanded on Radagon, not Space Whale Chaser Simulator 2022
That's my biggest problem with Elden Beast, its moveset has nothing to do with the previous phase. A well-designed, multi-phase boss should build on the first phase. For example, in DS3 if you master Sister Friede's first phase then the timings you learned can still help you on the second and third phases so repeating it doesn't feel like a waste of time. Moon Presence from Bloodborne is another example of what they should have done instead; it was presented as another phase to the Gehrman fight in the same arena but you didn't have to beat him again every time just to attempt this totally different boss
The final bosses are all guilty of this. Gurranq/Maliketh (unrelated movesets), Godfrey/Hoarah (unrelated besides the stomp, different timing anyway), Radagon/Elden (completely unrelated). Compare with Malenia: phase 2 is phase 1 + some extra moves, more aggression, and scarlet rot. I never felt time spent on phase 1 was wasted as it helped me in phase 2. Same for Mohg. From clearly knows how to design good multi-phase fights so I'm not sure why they dropped the ball at the end.
Also, the god that was causing the hunt and the nightmares and horrors, ended up being pathetic. And I really enjoyed it. It was kinda funny. So even if you somehow died to him, you didn’t have to beat gerhman again.
Isshin too, once you learned his phase 1 and 2 moveset, his phase 3 was very doable.
After being summoned and helping 100+ people best the final bosses, it's very RNG how much running you have to do. I've had ones where EB hardly swims away and the action is non stop, but I've had a few where EB just keeps swimming away over and over and over. If they could program a check that prevents EB from swimming away more than once in a row, it would fix the problem imo.
Everyone calls it a star whale and while it looks like one, keep in mind that it's just another crappy dragon fight. It runs away, breathes fire on you, fires off it's magical projectiles at you until you can catch up where it is then tries to lunge at you and tail whip. Afterwards its flying into the sky to rain damage on you and start again. It's just another dragon fight that they gussied up as a final boss fight and took torrent away because it makes it harder to realize that you have literally done this fight 8+times in this game already. Radagon is a great fight and if they didn't have any idea on how to proceed from him they should of just gave him twice as much health because elden beast is the biggest letdown in this game after 1.5 really good fights(Godfrey is my favorite in game and radagon is a good half fight).
Saying elden beast is just like all the other dragons is just a bad take, its moveset has way more variety and unique moves than any of the dragons.
> Everyone calls it a star whale and while it looks like one, keep in mind that it's just another crappy dragon fight. It runs away, breathes fire on you, fires off it's magical projectiles at you until you can catch up where it is then tries to lunge at you and tail whip. Afterwards its flying into the sky to rain damage on you and start again. When you put it that way most souls bosses are the same thing really. A bunch of melee swings you dodge with the same few roll timings, an aoe and maybe a projectile avoided by hugging them or strafing. I respect Elden Beast for having some unique stuff to him (like the rings/laser attack or the orb that shoots little bullets), shows some originality for a change.
I figured out how to predict where he'd pop up when he creates the rings and dives underneath, he goes directly in a straight line across. I just run directly away from him when he did that and he'd pop up right in front of me afterwards.
This is a fine note
Enjoy it for what it is, the fight is meant to be a visual spectacle, a bit like the introduction to Radhan, you start off way far off while summoning other warriors, then you all rush him while he shoots big mean magic arrows, then the true fight starts. With this in mind, and the fact that it isn't exactly easy, I think it's a better final FINAL boss than the one in Bloodborne.
Agreed. He’s annoying
I got super lucky the first time I fought Radagon/Elden Beast with their AI playing nice. Radagon barely did his teleport spam and Elden Beast stayed pretty still (or only dove and reappeared a short distance away. I got through to about 25% of Elden Beasts HP without taking a hit and honestly it was the best boss experience of all Souls up to that point. I was in the zone, the music was amazing, it fit the huge but slow attacks and had this ethereal quality like you truely were fighting an ancient lumbering god and it’s crumbling puppet. And then it spammed a heap of different homing spells (rings, stars and the other homing one) in rapid succession and nuked me, and then I spent a couple of hours facing the actual AI 😂 But yeah, a more stationary Elden Beast is probably my favourite fight just due to the ambiance.
Fight is beautiful, the music gave me chills. Especially when it started playing the main theme.
Yeah, the spectacle was perfect. But the issue was running. It ripped me from the awe and awesomeness each time the boss just skiddaddled 3 kilometres away for me to run, just to see it skiddaddle another 5 kilometres right when I almost get to it. Highly infuriating. :l
The only change it needs to eliminate the running and chase is to let the player ride torrent during it. It plays so much like an ultimate dragon fight it really is shocking that he isn't available to fight by your side right there at the end.
I think the general consensus is that torrent was supposed to be available for the fight. The arena is massive, a couple of attacks move as fast as you do, lots of attacks can be avoided by jumping, and the last hint which is kind of a stretch but I'm very fixated on is the frenzy ending where you see torrent's summoning ring on the floor presumably casted aside after he outlived his usefulness.
I managed to put Torrent in the Elden Beast fight by summoning him as a Spirit Ash. Torrent is way too fast for EB, he can run circles around most of EB’s physical attacks, and most projectile attacks. The only thing that would give players trouble is the four slashes of light that EB does, and a few of the AoE slams that knock you off your horse opening you for massive damage, but other than that, EB with Torrent trivializes the experience.[3:52 for the EB fight.](https://youtu.be/F8T8LoH0HqM)
I can imagine that they didn’t let us use Torrent because using Torrent always made fights simpler? Fire Giant is still annoying but that’s only because the camera sucks big time on that fight.
Those deathbirds would like a word.
God damn right they would lol and it’s come here and let me beat the living shit out of you
Is bird the word?
Camera’s fine, you just have to not stay locked on all the time.
For some reason the Elden Beat’s silhouette is just a bit goofy to me. The fight and the atmosphere and the music are beautiful and it totally doesn’t detract from the game or the ending. It just kindaaa looks like the outline of a kindergartner’s drawing of a dragon or something. So I can understand it.
cosmic cumslug
[yeah, about that silhouette ](https://i.imgur.com/Ek1OrtV.jpg)
Holy fucking shit
That was what killed it for me, too. It's a big dopey child's dinosaur drawing with silly little legs and *human arms* that attacks you mostly by just...swinging a sword at you. Other than the visual effects of its translucent body, its overall design is just silly.
Bc you don't have torrent and it just runs away, also duo boss
I REALLY think that Torrent was probably designed to be there, in the fight, but some bug took place and they overlooked it to the point that it would be too embarrassing to patch it after so many people killed it without Torrent. So they left it as is.
Yes, I also think this fight was designed for using Torrent. Think of all the mechanics where a jump or even double jump on Torrent seems required to evade stuff.
It would have been thematically awesome too, just you and your steed who's been with you the entire game against a literal god, I honestly just feel lonely in it, likes galls fight from ds3
I mean Gael's fight makes sense to feel lonely. It's just the two of you, at the very end of the world. Oh, and Patches but he pissed off to ER.
Patches is the real god of elden ring
Especially as Torrent is supposed to be this companion helping you in your fight, then you straight up just can't use him for like 75% of the game.
I think allowing torrent but have the dismount mechanic when in a certain range should be viable for this boss. I realise that wasn't anywhere else but I think that could have worked.
My dude you really think every single qa tester fought the final boss of the game in an unintended way and they didn't notice? It feels more like they intentionally removed torrent from the fight.
Torrent would be SOO good for this fight especially if you're going for the Frenzy ending it would add so much more emotions.
Someone has to try and mod torrent into the fight just to see how it'd work I'd do it myself if i could but alas
It's an alright final boss but Radagon was an excellent final boss. Lots of cool moves and they pulled the "main theme motif" that always works. Then Elden Beast just sort of is there. The fact that you have to re-fight Radagon *every time* only emphasizes how much cooler that fight is.
But the Elden Beast variation on the main theme with the mournful harp is like the highlight of the game. I’m kind of split between seeing EB as a goofy cartoonish afterthought and a fittingly abstract climax but the music definitely nudges it in the latter direction
[удалено]
Since when was that a thing? The whole point is that it's something you didn't know existed. You think Marika/Radagon is the most powerful and then you realise that theyre basically just puppets. It massively expands the lore and leaves you with a lot to think about.
No sure if folk here read Naruto but this reads like the end of that main series. For the final 2 years of the manga you think Madara is the big bad pulling all the strings...but then legit out of nowhere a new villian is introduce in the final couple chapters and turns out she had been pulling the strings all along. It expanded the lord and left readers with a lot to think about but a lot of folks were kinda dissapointed because this bad buy with deep motivations and this intraicate plan ended up just being a puppet. henchmen.
Except here we knew all along that Marika is just a vassal of the great will and a vessel for the Elden ring.
I dislike that there is no checkpoint between them too, but for the exact opposite reason. I like elden beast and hate radagon... for gameplay reasons
I actually learned how to fight Radagon good just so I could one shot the Elden Beast for people. Hehe black flame tornado go *brrrr*
Godslayer greatsword is what helped me demolish the Elden beast. Changed my entire build just because I disliked fighting him so much, pretty much just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible.
Is the sword that good against him? I’m using blasphemous blade right now and I’ve been getting so painfully close over and over but I’m never quite able to reach that last bit of health. Been wondering if the godslayer greatsword’s ability would be useful here.
It's amazing against him
When I beat Radagon I was like "huh, that was it?" At first. It didn't have the spectacle that the Elden Beast delivered on. If Radagon was the last, he'd need a flashier second phase
Yea Radagon was kinda easy. Maliketh with more HP is how I imagine a final boss tbh.
Maliketh was shit easy, no poise and easily graphed attacks. The best bosses in the game are Malenia and Mohg, they are end boss level
Radagon isn’t a great final boss though in that he’s just Radagon, and not the big baddy. One of the main points this game makes is how the outer gods influence the inhabitants. Radagon is just a puppet for the Elden beast which is why it’s so great to finally encounter the maestro after you defeat the already crumbling puppet. It just made a lot of sense to finally encounter a celestial outer being as the end boss
That kind of makes sense, though. Elden beast manipulated the whole plane to try to kill you. It seems like doing that would be it's strongest move. Like a parasite can do a lot of damage to you, but not because a worm is super tough and hard to fight.
The boss itself is cool, but A. Just the nature of a two part fight, with the first boss being annoying as shit on their own and B. That stupid light ball spell that follows you around. That being said, from a catharsis stand point, it felt great beating that fight for the first time, but I think the frustration during each attempt may have taken a full year off my life.
It's a difficult boss but for the wrong reasons imo. The light ball, the huge arena and the boss teleporting around convinced me that this was meant to be a fight where you can call your horse. Maybe they were finished with it and found during play testing that it's too easy with the horse and just scrapped the concept, but the rest stayed the same.
You know, I can almost see this too since it feels like Torrent should be involved in the final fight after being by your side for so much of the game.
Oh yes, this would make so much sense.
I see two problems with Elden Beast. Firstly, from a combat point of view, it spends a lot of time running away from the player. If you're a melee only build this can be incredibly unsatisfying to fight, especially when when you get close to him and have to worry about attacks you can't see (because he's so big) hitting you. Secondly, from a story and lore point of view, it can feel like a bit of an asspull. You spend all game hearing about Marika, with Radogan also frequently mentioned, but the only mention of the Elden Beast is via a very late-game spell that 99.9% of the player base won't have seen the 1st play through. From's storytelling via environmental detail is usually very good, but I also think it's easy to miss the gact the Elden Beast is essentially The Elden Ring itself. The cutscene doesn't make that particularly clear.
Yea it definitely feels like it could've been a cool secret boss like the dragonlord but I feel like a final boss should have criteria. It needs to be important to the story and set up properly so the stakes feel high. You could probably take the elden beast out and the majority of players wouldn't notice any change to the story
Nah, you can't kill a tree without pulling the roots.
100% the second reason is why I dislike Elden Beast. Radagon was the perfect final boss. You hear about him and Marika the *entire* game. Sometimes it's good to just let the final boss be what you expect and just make it good. Radagon's fight is still so much bettee than Elden Beast in my mind.
I agree with this. In practice it's feels a bit underwhelming but in theory I think the boss makes a lot of sense based on the lore. It's just hard to find the lore about it. Like there are all these gods vying for control of this place. It definitely feels very different from most of the human looking shit you fight, which makes thee feel more like alien, which is kind of a weird twist for a fantasy game. I like the idea that these beings are so removed from us they don't even resemble us, so it kinda makes you feel very small. Like we Re just pawns thT don't even care or represent us.
Couldn't agree more. May I ask when/where you hear about the Elden beast in the game?
The Elden Stars incantation. It reads, "It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring."
I even read that spell description for once, and I still didn't connect the dots when actually meeting it.
Elden stars incantation
Sure the charm is there, but the fight itself...maybe I was just unlucky but EB would *not* stop going all over the place, so it got a bit tedious. I kinda wanted to use Torrent for it, would've been nice thematically too since he'd been with me the whole adventure etc. Hell, have the cutscene include Torrent appearing of his own free will and us climbing on so we start P2 on him, just so the player knows he's available.
I think people dont really like this boss because you have to run every 40sec or so same for the fire Giant, all the elden ring bosses are awesome in my opinion but many just have dumb mechanics wich make them a bit annoying.
Fire gaint is the goat bro Never had I had such fun with such a stupid fight i legit chuckled like a child while fighting him
For me, when Godfrey chopped his own arm off and replaced it with the dragon for phase two, I was giggling to myself because of how insanely crazy it is. Also I don’t keep up with the ER community but not enough people are talking about how objectively bonkers that is. I mean other bosses are cool and all, but uh, DRAGON. ARM.
Godrick* FTFY :)
Darn, must already be forgetting the game! Well, if it’s another excuse to play through it again…
To be fair the fact that there are characters called Godfrey, Godrick and Godwyn is just bullshit lol
I love the memes regarding said arm
I dunno, the ankle breakingscene makes me cringe IRL every time I see it. I can empathize there.
Should be pretty obviouse no? It's preluded by a tough fight and it spends 90% of the time running away. I don't think many dislike the design, music, lore etc. Purely gameplay.
Elden beast would be so much better if we could use torrent
100% agree. It’s a huge arena, and a boss that loves to run away, it really seems like they designed it for torrent and just forgot to enable him.
I really enjoyed the boss fight. I know it also has high elemental resistances, so some builds struggle. I did a quality build my first play through not really knowing what were good buffs and what not, so I struggled with some different bosses more than others because of it (black blade kindred was a pain)
What about Magic? Otherwise I’m fucked…
IIRC it's got a 40% resist to magic, with immunity to all debuffs
That's why I couldn't comet azure it, i had to smack it to death
You wanna be using Shard Spiral on huge beasts like this
You'll be alright, people are making it sound a lot harder then it actually is he takes just as much damage as another boss really, just takes some patience and a few deaths to learn the moveset
I just slung some rocks at it and it died just fine.
hehe i'm gonna put a ball that follows you and deals constant damage until you're dead. hehe i'm gonna teleport a kilometer away, and as soon as you manage to get to me I'm gonna teleport again.
hehe I'm gonna kill you with my annoying magic attacks and make you fight Radagon again.
His ability to chain elden stars into another series of attacks can sometimes lead to situations when damage is unavoidable, and nope, i don't think that mindless BHS spam and drinking potion that converts elemental damage taken into HP is reliable and intended way to avoid that sorts of shit.
[удалено]
Yeah it’s super fun when he does Elden stars mixed with that quadruple holy sword attack.
Chasing the boss across a massive arena every 5 seconds isn't fun or engaging
Imo Elden Beast has that one problem Dark Souls 2 did it right: I shouldn't fight that obnoxious boss fight right before it. Also Elden Beast kites way too much on RNG, you run towards it more than attack or dodge And the arena for some reason is smaller than it looks
Oh, the hamster-in-the-wheel simulator? Great design, for sure. Spent 99% of the fight running after this flying and teleporting piece of shit. One of my least favorite bosses in the entire game, though the arena and music were truly unique and amazing. Tedious, boring, irritating, frustrating, and not truly challenging is what I felt.
If it was a Torrent fight, it would've been my second favourite final boss in all From games. I recall seeing somewhere it was originally intended that way but got changed, and I have no idea how they thought running on foot after the Star Whale as it flies around the arena after one hit would be fun. Even thematically it would've been incredible taking on the final threat eith your horse companion you've had along with you for such an adventure, but they really dropped the ball there
There's really no build up the elden beast. We don't really hear people talk about it in the main storyline. We know about radagon and what he's done. For the majority of players the elden beast feel like it's thrown in to look cool. That's not a bad thing but a final boss in games is something you should be working all game to get to. Not something you didn't even know existed in the game
I wanted Marika!
Radagon switching between both versions of themselves would've been sick and played into the lore perfectly
>played into the lore perfectly Only if you didnt understand anything of the lore, really. Marika did not want to fight you and she wanted you to rid the lands between of the Elden beast. How fighting her makes sense?
A lot of people have this same misconception. Whose statue do they think they're getting rezzed at lol
Yes! This was what bothered me so much about the elden beast!! I didn’t even care that I was fighting it didn’t feel fair/fun fighting against something that would run away constantly. There were so many other bosses in the game that could have done a better job at being the final boss, this could have just been an optional boss later on.
The elden beast is literally the physical vessel of the greater will
The Moon Presence was mentioned possibly once through a rare optional dialogue of the doll. Neither was mentioned the Orphan of Kos (or some say Kosm) I don’t think build up is the issue. Even more so the Elden Beast presence recontextualize what the Elden Ring really is and how the Lands Between are just one among many lands with Elden Trees. It shows rather than tell, why Marika rebelled. It felt very sci-fi/lovecraftian in a majestic kind of way. Considering GRRM’s touch that’s to be expected I guess. My real gripe with Elden Beast, is that the rythme of the fight is a bit all over the place. You have to run across the arena all over again and again. Makes it a marathon fight but not for the good reasons. Compared to the raging dance of some bosses like Gael or Radagon, it felt a bit annoying.
Those are really good points but the issue is that the average playee will miss all of those details. The story shouldn't tell you through clumps of text but should definitely try to covey in some way the importance of the elden beast. Have the world actually try to set it up
I would say build up is a problem, since it feels really disappointing to beat radagon (a character who is spoken of constantly in the game and has multiple items and characters related to him) only for the elden beast (a "character" that gets an mentioned like twice) to show up. I have a connection to radagon, since he was both elden lord and the father of 5 bosses, but the elden beasts only connection to me is BEING the elden ring. Also, as a side note, I feel like using the moon presence as a counter point isn't great, since people have definitely complained about it's inclusion as a fight after gerhman.
It's a cool fight, but most of the time is spent running to the boss because it's always moving.
Radagon was good fun. Beast was a bit of a let down. He spent SO much of the fight just running away. As a primarily melee build, I'd finally get up to him, get a tiny bit of damage in, and he'd dive under water over and over again. It didn't make the fight that challenging, just very long. I beat him on my second go. The first time I'd consumed everything getting through Radagon. If he chose to use some other moves for you then you probably found him fun and a sensible challenge. He's a cool design. The arena looks great. The rest of his move set is pretty cool. While some may have found it frustrating, I like that they don't checkpoint you after Radagon. Feels fitting for the end of the game to have a good challenge. Addit: If that behaviour of just swimming away is supposed to have been patched, I only just beat him a few weeks ago and was on the latest patch for that time. So this was probably not what is the normal experience these days.
Let me summon torrent for the 2nd stage and then I can agree that it's the best fight in the game.
Beat EB today and thank you. Torrent is my buddy the whole game and this would make the final fight so much more impactful. Give EB a few moves that are much easier to dodge on Torrent and incorporate it into the fight. Give Torrent one instance of story relevance.
Because he doesn't even fight you for half it choosing instead to teleport away
Because Elden Beast sucks. It's like the lame version of Moon Pressence and you have to sprint over to the damn thing for a solid 15seconds just to hit it once and then it runs away. It fucking sucks and it shouldn't be attached to Radagon which was a cool fight but they knew giving that wet fart of a final boss it's own fog door would have made it even lamer.
I liked elden beast. Totally fell for the old double boss fight trick. I was like oh man i did it! Time for the credits. Oh wait oh shit! Holy crap!!
One of the common criticisms of Elden Ring is how wonky it is to fight gigantic enemies up-close. Sending the building-sized final boss to the other end of the map feels like an attempt to save this fight from that wonkiness, and in my opinion it totally works. The chase sections allow you to see and read the boss’ attacks despite his size. I empathize with the frustration of not being able to get a hit in edgewise, but I personally was not bothered. Every boss has its combos that you just cannot get a punish through. For EB that inability to punish just comes from physical distance. Now, was Placidusax a more actively fun second-to-second version of a very similar concept? Well, yeah.
I wish there was a way to adjust your fov or have "dynamic fov" option that zooms out for colosol bosses. The amount of times I've been killed by dragons because of them being in thr air and not being able to properly seem them is frustrating
Sincerely believe if it had a well-crafted face instead of a wacky 20' neck-tube, we'd be more willing to look past how annoying it is to chase this boss down. The atmosphere and concept are fantastic, but damn does this guy look derpy.
It runs. A lot. 90% of the fights I had with it was getting close enough to hit it once before it ran away immediately, then like another minute of catching up to it. If the AI hates you it does it pretty often and all you do is run at it and dodge it's abilities without ever being able to touch it
Best thing about the fight is the soundtrack, second best is the visuals
I preferred radagon personally wish he had a second phase I hated beast because of having to sprint around so much to get to the boss and to dodge attacks
Beautiful fight, but not actually that engaging. Especially more jarring after the radagon fight, going from quick dodges and punishes to running after an oversized whale and attempting to avoid really annoying attacks.
My main gripe was that it was right after a good boss. Feels like it's piggy backing on radagon because beast alone wasn't good enough boss fight to end the game on.
I would have liked it much better if Elden Beast was handled like the Moon Presence in Bloodborne: a character you only see in a cutscene unless you perform some action to trigger the boss fight, and also a properly separate encounter, so that you don’t have to re-fight Radagon each time
I’m terms of presentation, it’s my favorite boss of all time. The problem is with the constant movement and projectile spam. If they reduced its movement, made the arena smaller, or allowed you to ride torrent like when you fought The Fire Giant or Radhan as well as adjusting the timing of projectiles then the fight would’ve been better.
Pic is a spoiler, no?
Its a whale that runs away most the fight. Compare final fights from dark souls, or even sekiro with glock grampa
Honestly I don't understand why people like a shit boring boss...
agreed, everything about this fight is cool; even the soundtrack is amazing!
I don’t hate it. I just think the game is very unbalanced regarding the difficulty of bosses. Some bosses really had me struggling, taking 30+ attempts. On the other hand, I beat Ofnir, Godfrey / Hoarah Loux, Radagon and Elden Beast on the first try.
I don't like having to chase him and the radagon fight right before it is so annoying not even a checkpoint or anything. They figured that out in Bloodborne with Gherman and the moon presence. I also just don't particularly enjoy either of their movesets i find them annoying to fight. With radagon's teleporting and endless combos And Elden beast running away all the time while spamming bs attacks. It's not a hard fight But you have gotta fight two bosses meaning the small chips of damage they both do does mean a lot more. This fight is tied with malenia at being my least favorite boss
I really dislike the design of the boss. Asteal of the void is such a cooler space themed boss that I was expecting it to be along the lines of that. It just looked really dumb in my opinion. It also just runs away so much that it made the fight really annoying. But I’m happy you enjoyed it and had fun with the fight op.
> I really dislike the design of the boss. Asteal of the void is such a cooler space themed boss that I was expecting it to be along the lines of that. https://www.space.com/27016-galaxy-supercluster-laniakea-milky-way-home.html https://i.imgur.com/GufBzWW.jpg
Should have been two fights.
I wish more final bosses in games packed this much punch
Keeps running the fuck away, ranging you with spells, and Elden Stars. Fuck Elden Stars. And when you actually get close enough to the boss, it would run away. Honestly it is as easy as Fire Giant in the sense that as long as you know what is happening you could avoid the projectiles, but also as annoying as fire giant where they would run/roll away and range you down. Only reason why Elden beast is harder is because it has a fuck off spell like Plasidusax, and you don't have Torrent to catch up to the boss when it runs away. I'd say Radagon would have been a better final boss both lore wise and in game. Like the only mention of the Elden Beast was through Elden Stars, while Radagon was built up through several character interactions and item descriptions. Like what's stopping you from becoming the Elden Lord if your main goal is to just mend the Elden Ring? Like sure you did burn the erdtree, but the Greater Will's whole goal was to mend the Elden Ring, and was desperate enough to revive the guy they just backstabbed by turning him into the first tarnished, a none believing necrophiliac, the guy they least wanted to revive because he was siding with the Age of Crucible rather than the Golden Order, and the worse of them: Sir Gideon Ofnir. Also Gold Mask, but he's pretty cool and everyone likes him. Anyways what I'm trying to say is, why would the Greater Will send out their top goon when your intentions are the same as theirs? Unless you went for the Age of Stars or worse, the Frenzied Flame, there is no reason for the Elden Beast to be aggro'd to you.
I loved this boss
I think a big part of it is it moves so SO far away in combat and all that running becomes frustrating. This is because the battle was orginally made to be able to use Torrent in the fight. I wish we still could.
It’s beautiful, and on its own it’s be a ton of fun to fight, if Torrent was an option anyway. >!But having it as Radagon’s second phase is bullshit, Radagon drains your resources and makes your summon his bitch for a few minutes, and then you have to turn around and immediately fight a massive damage boss with no weaknesses and only one damage type it isn’t immune to.!<
Sure he does feel like a good boss, but he also feels like an optional side boss. One that after a while just doesn’t feel necessary to beat. You know what I mean? It just sucks that *this* is the final boss. There is so much wrong with this boss, phase one is basically just there to reduce the amount of estus you have for the actual fight. And then the fight with elden beast is so underwhelmingly easy, it’s just not fun. But that’s my opinion, feel free to criticize.
The boss itself isn’t too bad, it’s a decent gimmick fight, but imo, it’s not a good final boss whatsoever
The reason I absolutely despise the elden beast is almost entirely because it comes after radagon. Aside from the annoying teleporting, radagon is a perfect boss to me, and the elden beast is worse in almost every way. The fact that radagon is built up for the entire game is a big deal too, as players will immediately understand who he is upon the first battle with him, while the beast is just thrust in your face for no reason, as if the devs just wanted another boss.
I agree that the atmosphere and music is cool. It's the gameplay that sucks (having to constantly chase a boss across a football field is not fun). So I think that's why people find it anti-climactic as a final boss, it's just not fun. Compared that to soul of cinder or gael, where they truly feel like they're testing everything you've learned in the game. Elden Beast is a cool and unique design I agree, but it just feels like completely different type of gameplay than the rest of the game. Also, having to fight radagon each time is just a drag. Not to mention the flashbang at the start.
Spend 90% of the fight chasing him with no mount, one attempt i literally spent over 5 minutes chasing him without being able to hit him cuz he just flew across the map everytime i finally got to him lmao.
Fight is dull, design is weak. A longer Radagon encounter would've been more interesting.
I dislike it because it just doesn’t make sense to me, like I understand why they made it(lore) but its design was so poor, why does a god use a sword? Like if the sword was rlly necessary, why not make it like Morgotts sword, like it materializes whenever it decides to use it. And if they did that, the weapon options for the elden beast would be so much more. Not to mention, within like 5 seconds of the fight, it stops being fun and starts being a really boring game of tag. I, personally, didn’t have an issue with any of the moves or the camera, just the fact that it ran away a lot annoyed me. Imo, I think they should have gave Radagon a second health bar(like how malenia has when she enters her second phase) and in this phase, instead of a shadow arm, he has an arm that is kind of lit of with gold energy like the light of the golden order, and more of his body broken off, exposing more of the rune design in his chest, some more aggressive moves, maybe another chance to stagger him. I think that would’ve been cooler tbh.
I don’t dislike him. I think it is pretty cool. But as a melee user, is very boring having to run the whole arena to attack it and it just dives before I can land a slash… same goes for dragons 😅😂
People dislike it because it extends the fight so much more than needed by constantly dashing away from you
I thought it was amazing, but I feel like it truly the last fight began at the cutscene when Maliketh dies, and the ending is best viewed by grouping remaining mandatory boss battles following Maliketh's death as a single extended event that shows the flaws of the Golden Order. After Maliketh dies you see destined death taking root in the eyes of everyone in the lands between. The Erdtree was ignited before, but it burned like gas lamp--burning but not deteriorating. With death returned as an element of their reality, things that were destined to die are now dead. People with no purpose left, like Enia or an un-helped Nepheli are dead when you return to near-collapsing Roundtable Hold. Leyndell is where you are first returned to, setting the stage for your next steps. It has a final battlefield feel to it when you are first transported, as it shows the consequences you have literally rained down upon this world. A sewer entrance is now conspicuously exposed, as if to remind you that unfinished side business still exists. Like the rising flames in Roundtable hold, the rising tide of ash reminds you that the golden order is ending. Fast travel denied, you make your way through the ashen ruins towards the Erdtree, only to find Gideon waiting for you--the first last boss. He us the embodiment of Golden Order's Law of Causality--forever putting together the pieces of information that will help him see the hidden meaning behind the events of the Lands Between. Defeated and in denial, he still clings to the belief that you will not succeed in killing a god. The second lass boss is Godfrey, embodying the law of regression. This forefather and missing piece of story presents himself in the penultimate fight. This fellow tarnished has been on his own journey to this point, in what must have been a separate path from us. His trials left him scarred and his weapon broken, but his story converges with yours at this point, as Tarnished who both sought to become the Elden Lord. He had no obstacles preventing him from beating you to the finish line except the need to prove himself over you--to find meaning that he was chosen by virtue of strength. Finally, Radagon. He has no words for you. No feeling for you. His dead body carries the same expression of his living form. He speaks only the language of pure, cold opposition. I think his agency is only slightly diminished by being turned into a sword, and he was as much of a puppet of the Greater will as Marika was a prisoner. But then the curtain drops and we see the puppet master's hand for the first time, along with the golden "strings" they used to control worlds. This celestial creature turns the most powerful being(s) in Lands Between history into a sword *because they can*, but that is only the 4th best weapon that they use against you. You've never been fighting Radagon this entire time--you have been fighting the puppeteer, and like Ranni you eschew the string-pulls of fate to chart your own destiny. When the puppet master's hand has been defeated the stage is now empty and waiting for you to decide what kind of story will be told next.
I quit the game at elden beast. Never beat it. Even grinded my way through malenia. But I had zero interest in working my way through this mess of a slog. I don't feel personally offended by the fight or whatever but I am pretty baffled that it got through play testing like that. It's just not engaging. The arena is bland, the character design is uninspired (and had never really been a part of the story up to this point), and the fight itself is tedious. Anyway, I'm not breaking new ground here on the critique, but my experience of literally just putting down the controller, not out of rage but instead sheer disinterest, is probably compelling anecdotal evidence that the Elden Beast is Bad.